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COMMON CARP. 353 



" Mr. Ladbroke, from his park at Gatton, presented. Lord 

 Egremont with a brace that weighed thirty-five pounds, as 

 specimens to ascertain whether the Surrey could not vie with 

 the Sussex Carp." In 1793, at the fishing of the large piece 

 of water at Stourhead, where a thousand brace of killing Carp 

 were taken, the largest was thirty inches long, upwards of 

 twenty-two inches in girth, and weighed eighteen pounds." 



At Weston Hall, Staffordshire, the seat of the Earl of 

 Bradford, the painting of a Carp is preserved which weighed 

 nineteen and a half pounds. This fish was caught in a lake 

 of twenty-six acres, called the White Sitch, the largest of 

 three pieces of water which ornament this fine estate. 



Carp are difficult to take by angling, or rather very uncer- 

 tain, great success one day, and little or none another, hap- 

 pening to the same angler at the same water. Carp manage 

 equally to avoid a net, burying themselves in the mud, and 

 allowing a heavily-loaded ground-line to pass over them with- 

 out their moving ; but if disturbed from their hiding-places, 

 frequently endeavouring, like the Grey Mullet, to escape 

 over the corked head-line. Carp are in season for the table 

 from October to April, and are greatly indebted to cooks for 

 the estimation in which they are held. 



The mouth is small ; no apparent teeth ; a barbule or 

 cirrus at the upper part of each corner of the mouth, with a 

 second smaller one above it on each side : the nostrils large, 

 pierced at the second third of the distance between the 

 lip and the eye ; the eye small ; operculum marked with 

 strise radiating from the anterior edge ; nape and back rising 

 suddenly. The fin-rays are 



D. 22 : P. 17 : V. 9 : A. 8 : C. 19. Vertebrae 36. 



First dorsal fin-ray short and bony ; the second also 

 bony, strongly serrated on the posterior surface ; the third 

 ray flexible, and the longest ray in the fin ; all the other 



VOL. j. 2 A 



